“Yes. She’s everything she seems to be but better.”
Wow, those were big words from someone I didn’t think handed compliments out easily.
“Odysseus, Odi, is the fourth one of us. He’s a stuffy shit sometimes, but he’s a good guy.” He made a thoughtful sound in his throat. “After that is Robert, or who you all call The Centurion. He’s a kiss-ass, but he’s everything he seems to be. Then there’s Leon. He owns a farm an hour away. He’s good. He doesn’t like people much though.”
Said Old Grumpy Pants. I almost snorted.
“He might be here if our mom pressured him into it,” Alex kept going.
“Then you, since you’re the baby,” I told him with a little cackle. “It explains so much.”
“I was until Selene. She was the surprise no one saw coming.”
“She’s yoursister?” I squawked.
He gave me a crazy look. “What did you think she was?”
“I don’t know. A cousin or something.”
“No, she’s my baby sister.”
I hadn’t seen that coming either, but now that I thought about it, I guess she did look like The Centurion. I was going to have to ponder that one. “At first, I thought you and Leon were twins. You look a lot alike.”
“He’s a year older than me.”
“Are you the closest to him?”
He thought about it for a second and tipped his head.
“So Achilles, Athena, and Odysseus all work for the same business?”
“Yeah. Everyone that works on that floor is family.”
What was the family business? Was it the Akita Corporation? I wanted to ask and hoped he would say, but he didn’t. Fine. Maybe I’d overhear something tonight. “Is there anything to worry about with them?” I patted the little knife I’d snuck into my underwear. I hoped it didn’t stab me in the thigh.
“No.” Alex trailed off, obviously noticing what I thought I was hiding from the way he sighed. “Still?” he muttered, almost sounding disappointed.
“I’m not going to stab you with it,” I told him. “It makes me feel better, all right?”
He grumbled. Then he sighed, and a moment later he said, “There’s something for you in the glove compartment.”
I looked at him before remembering why I wasn’t supposed to focus on him for too long and focused back out the windshield. “What?”
“Do I have to repeat the entire thing or…?”
I rolled my eyes before stopping and wondering if that might mess up the eyeshadow that it had taken me three tries to get decent. “Sometimes I think I do miss you being pissed off and just grunting,” I muttered. “But please, repeat the whole thing. I don’t think I heard you correctly. There’s something in the glove compartment?”
The man I wasn’t supposed to be looking at, who was dressed in a suit that looked like it had been made specifically for him, sighed. “Something for you.”
For me? “Really?”
“That’s what I said. You bought me that cookie; we’re even now.”
“Just so we’re on the same page, a gift isn’t a gift if you expect something in return.”
Alex didn’t say a word.
“And again, just to be on the same page, I wasn’t expecting anything. I got you the cookie because you’d said that one night that you wanted a cookie when I said I wanted Cheetos. You got me the Cheetos already.”
